


A Problem You Can't Hit

by TheBraveHobbit



Series: Taut [16]
Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Gen, Trans Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-14
Updated: 2013-07-14
Packaged: 2017-12-20 03:41:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/882528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBraveHobbit/pseuds/TheBraveHobbit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: Bahorel has to deal with a problem he can't address with physical aggression<br/>Pairing: Trans*woman Jehan/Bahorel<br/>Summary: Bahorel and Jehan are fighting over permanence, possessive pronouns, and cigarettes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Problem You Can't Hit

**Author's Note:**

> Part of my sandbox-style Modern!AU: Taut  
> Additional content can be found on my tumblr: elfjolras.tumblr.com

They were fighting again.

And not the kind of fighting Bahorel was good at, with his fists and his shoulders and the swing of his foot, but the kind where his hands had to stay still or else cross over his chest and his words flew out of his mouth with more force than they should. He was too aggressive for verbal fights, and his words formed into bricks that crashed straight into people and left fractures and bruises. He might as well have been using his fists. He’d never been as good with words as Jehan. He didn’t take the same care when he put them together, said them sooner than he thought them. Jehan, though, took her time to respond. Sometimes she took days.

It’d been days. She’d been gone for days, and she hadn’t so much as sent him a text to tell him that she was still okay.

They were fighting again and it wasn’t the kind of fighting Bahorel liked. And damn, he liked to fight.

Jehan was his favorite…well, she was his favorite lots of things, wasn’t she? His favorite sparring partner. His favorite dancing partner. His favorite mess. His favorite fuck. His favorite laugh. His favorite smile. His favorite frown.

Frowns.

Her dimples were deeper when she frowned. She despaired about them, and called them wrinkles, and she stood in front of the mirror in the mornings and fretted over them, but the way her cheeks pinched and the way her brow creased and the way her nose scrunched was as endearing and sincere as the bright bark of her laughter.

He was thinking about her frowns as he pulled another cigarette from the pack, lighting it with the dying glow of the one just plucked from his lips. He leaned over a little, half hanging off the couch to smother the finished butt in the ceramic-mixing-bowl-turned-ashtray he had propped within reach. He didn’t spare a look at the growing pile there; he already knew he was a notorious chain smoker. Instead, he closed his eyes, wondering how the hell he had let her get under his skin this way.

“You’re smoking in here?” He hadn’t heard the door, which was unusual. The hinges had been creaking for months, and neither of them had cared enough to grease them. Bahorel looked up to see Jehan leaning in the door to their kitchen, staring at him where he was reclined half naked on the couch. Her hair was all mussed, as though she hadn’t brushed it since she’d left. Actually, he thought, she probably hadn’t. She was wearing the same outfit, too. She would have had to; she’d left all her things here. The pleated dress looked slept in, though the bags under her eyes suggested it hadn’t been especially restful sleep. Chapeau was tucked under her arm and the giant furball had curled into to the curve of her hip, his tail wrapped around her waist. Bahorel could hear the creature purring from across the room.

“Your cat was sleeping in the pantry again.” She informed him, as though he had asked. Her tone was light and conversational. Maybe she didn’t want to fight anymore, but the words she had chosen were the ones they were fighting over. Chapeau was not his cat, and besides that, Chapeau was always sleeping somewhere. He liked the pantry, he liked the sinks. Once he’d gotten stuck in the hamper. Once they’d found him on the ceiling fan, and nobody had figured out how he’d managed to get up there, or, more confusing yet, how the fan had borne his weight. But the case remained that when Chapeau disappeared, Bahorel didn’t worry too much about it. Not the way he worried when Jehan disappeared.

“Yeah I’m smokin’ in here.” He grunted, inhaling deeply and immediately blowing the hot smoke back through his nose, ignoring the burn of it. It was worth a little sting to see her eyebrows furrow and her lips purse a bit before she leaned forward to set the cat back on the floor, her hair falling to hide her face as she said—very carefully, always carefully—

“I thought you had agreed to do it outside.”

They were fighting again. He could tell it was a fight, because her words made him set his jaw, stubbornness building before she’d even really accused him of anything.

“It’s my apartment, isn’t it? I can do what I want.”

Jehan’s body got tense all over, he could see it from where he was lounging. Her shoulders tightened and her neck went stiff. There was a wildness to her, a feral quality that she herself didn’t recognize. Jehan was fond of saying how Bahorel’s the fierce one, but when she straightened then her whole body was made of fire. He could feel the heat of it in concentrated in her gaze. Trying to look relaxed, Bahorel took another pull from his cigarette.

“If I’m going to live here, you’re going to have to do that outside.”

“Are you?” More bricks. Bahorel bit at his words, leaving the sentence only half said.

“Am I what?” She knew what he was asking, he was certain of it, but he answered her anyway, finishing his thought as harshly as it had begun.

“Even still living here?”

“Bahorel—”

“I mean it. Do you even still want to live here? Because I’m not gonna make you stay.”

“Bahorel—”

“I’m not looking for a roommate, Jehan. Fuck, even though a roommate would call this place theirs if someone asked. I’ve got a girlfriend, and we share an apartment, or we don’t.”

Jehan stared at him for a long time. Too long. It wasn’t comfortable, when she watched a person that way. The heaviness in her gaze created the impression that she was looking at all the things you hadn’t meant to share. Bahorel looked away, grimacing and kicking his feet down so that there was room on the couch. He ran a hand through his hair, tugging at the longest bit at the base of his neck in his unease. Jehan approached and sat at the far end, leaving a wall of air between them as she tucked her knees under her chin and dug her bare toes into the gap between the cushions, eyes still watching him intently. The fire she emanated was much softer now, more warmth than fury, but it was still unsettling.

“Why is this so important to you?” She asked, and her voice was at its softest. There was curiosity there, and concern, and danger.

“It’s not.” He immediately responded, then shook his head and brought the cigarette back to his lips. “I’m…Look, I like what we have.” Like was a weak word, it was an easy word, and he felt a little cowardly using it. “I love what we have.” I love you. Bahorel wouldn’t endure being called a coward, even by himself. “But I don’t have a roommate. I have a girlfriend.”

“Is it not the same thing?”

Bahorel let his breath out without drawing in the smoke, and the air between them clouded. “Like red and burgundy.” He grunted.

It was a relief to hear her laugh, even if the sound was brief. Going days without that laugh was like going days without water.

“So not even close.”

“Not remotely.”

“What if it doesn’t last?”

And wasn’t that just like her? Always looking toward the end and forgetting what was happening now?

“What if it doesn’t? If things change then they change. But this right now? This is good. So why not call it what it is?”

Jehan did not answer right away.

Really, she didn’t answer him at all, just scooted to his end of the couch and tucked herself under his arm before snatching his cigarette.

“Hey!” He tried to save it, but she held it at the fullest extent of her long arms. “I’ll move the party outside, if it bothers you that much.”

“Mm. Tomorrow.” She said, and put the cigarette to her own lips.

“You sure about that?” He asked, watching her. The way she inhaled, you could tell she was used to smoking something else. She never gave it time to cool and pulled it right into her lungs. “That makes tomorrow day one, again.”

“Tomorrow is always day one."

And wasn’t that just like her?


End file.
